1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods for sending coordinated notifications to a user. More particularly, the present invention relates to systems and methods for routing coordinated notifications to a user from each entity that is involved in a particular transaction with the user.
2. Background and Relevant Art
One of the advantages provided by the Internet is the ability to share information. Using tools such as email and instant messaging, users are able to interact and communicate with each other with relative ease. In fact, much of the communication and interaction that occurs on the Internet is user-to-user. The Internet or online presence of businesses, entertainment companies and other entities, however, is expanding and there is also a lot of communication and interaction that occurs between entities and users.
While businesses and entities also employ tools such as email in their communications with users, the interaction that occurs between entities and users is somewhat different from the interaction that occurs between users. For example, there is often some anonymity between the entities that provide content or data to users and the users that receive the content or data from the entities. In other words, some of the communication between these entities and their users is not necessarily unique with respect to a particular user in the sense that the identity of each individual user is often unknown to the entities.
Financial websites, for example, often provide stock quotes or interest rates to all users that request this type of data even though some of the users request quotes for different stocks or for different interest rates. In fact, some users indicate to these websites that they would like to receive notifications that indicate the current price of certain stocks. These websites know that they are providing customized content to different users but they may know very little about the users that receive the customized content.
Email is another example of online communication that demonstrates the anonymity that often exists between businesses and users. Many companies or businesses often send emails in mass, for instance, to as many different email addresses as possible. Even though each email is a business-to-user communication, there is no familiarity between the business and the email recipient and the business is often only aware of the user's email address. In fact, much of this type of email is often unsolicited and unwanted.
This anonymity is partially overcome by entities or websites that register their users. During registration, a user typically provides more detailed information about themselves to the website. When the user subsequently visits that website, the website is able to recognize that user when the user logs on (or via a cookie that is stored on the user's computer) and the content provided by that website is often customized for that user according to the information that was provided by the user. In this case, the interaction between the website and their registered users is more specific to each user, and the website is able to generate emails or other communications that are intended for certain users, even though the same or similar communications may occur with other users that have also registered with the same website.
Registration is also useful to many entities because the information provided by the user allows each entity to communicate with a user for a given transaction. Unfortunately, any given transaction that is performed on the Internet usually involves more than one business or entity. For example, an online bookstore is not the only entity that is involved in the transaction that occurs when a user purchases a book online. Other entities that may be involved in this transaction include both the company that ships the book to the user and the credit card company that allowed the user to charge the book at the online bookstore.
The shipping company and the credit card company, however, are not able to send information to the user that is tied to the original book purchase. In other words, the notifications that may be provided by these companies are not coordinated with the notifications that are provided by the original entity. The credit card company, for example, may be able to notify the user that a charge has been made to their account, but it is much more difficult to notify the user that their card was charged for the book that they purchased from the online bookstore and the credit card company may not know the best way notify the user for that transaction. Similarly, the shipping company may be able to inform the user that a package will be delivered, but the shipping company cannot identify the contents of the package being sent.
The inability to provide coordinated notifications from multiple entities results in ineffective communication with the user about the transaction. The notifications are not coordinated or related, for example, because the credit card company and the shipping company may not have access to the user's email address or because they are not directly involved in the part of the transaction that the user initiated with the online bookstore. Alternatively, the user may not have registered with the credit card company or the shipping company as the user did with the online bookstore. For these and other reasons, these companies cannot effectively provide coordinated notifications to the user regarding this particular transaction.
The inability of these entities to provide coordinated updates or notifications to a user regarding a particular transaction is part of another problem that is associated with transactions that occur over the Internet. When a user executes an online transaction, such as purchasing a book from an online bookstore, the user does not experience complete satisfaction. If the user purchases the book at a regular brick and mortar bookstore, they experience immediate satisfaction because they leave the bookstore with their newly purchased book and they can begin reading the book without delay. In contrast, a user that purchases the same book from an online bookstore does not experience this satisfaction. The user is required to wait until their book arrives.
As long as the user has provided sufficient information to the online bookstore, the online bookstore is able to provide some satisfaction to the user by generating communications to the user that indicate, for example, that the book is being packaged or that the book has been shipped. After the book has left the online bookstore, however, the user will no longer receive coordinated updates or notifications from the other entities involved in this transaction. For any given transaction that involves more than one entity, users or consumers are unable to receive notifications that cover the transaction from beginning to end in a coordinated fashion.